#I'd like to just replace that with 'Generally neurodivergent'

[legolasghosty]

How about Willie for the character bingo 👀

Hello my love!!! Here you go!!!

(send me a character and I'll do the bingo board of my opinions about them!)

[fandomshatepeoplewdisabilities]

So in this amazing, sadly quite niche space opera I recently read ("The Risen Empire" by Scott Westerfeld) there are two, three if you stretch the definition a bit, disabled characters, and I want to draw art and write fic of them, maybe even nsfw stuff of both categories.

Problem is, while I am neurodivergent, I am able-bodied, and one of these characters is Laurent Zai, Captain of a spaceship, tactical genius, and lost both legs and one arm in an intensely traumatic war captivity. While yeah, thanks to the high-tech in this future his prostheses can do things real life prostheses can't do, like sending tactile information back to his brain, as far as I can tell this book avoids most of the usual pitfalls when writing amputees: They do not fully replace his limbs, there are situations where they malfunction or do not work just quite as well as his original limbs or do not work at all, they need to be carefully maintained and they have weak spots. Most of the time Zai deals with them just fine, but from time to time they are different than what he knew, and it is bothering him, and giving him body dysmorphia, and he also does deal with phantom pain.

There is a beautiful and touching and tender and sensual scene where he finally confesses his trauma to his lover, and she reassures him that it's okay when he is "broken" and lets the trauma affect him, and he lets her take off his prostheses, and they have sex. Its not described particularly detailed, but it is a beautiful scene where he finally stops fighting against his trauma and is finally able to see his body as a source of joy and pleasure again, not just a tool he uses or a source of pain.

I am specifically thinking about making fanworks about that scene, but I don't want to fall into this "fetishizing amputees" trap, like the disgusting ableist "art" I once accidentally stumbled across online.

What are some things I have to look out for, apart from the obvious not depicting him as helplessly at mercy and powerless against his lover because he could not move away or fight back as well as her if it was necessary? Both small practical things like how one moves in such a situation that might not be apparent to me as an able bodied person, and more general things?

So I had a really hard time tracking down The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld. (It wasn't available through hoopla or libby at my local library). I might ask mod laina if they have some piratical hookups for it. But like I do want to boost this for our followers to weigh in on (or hey if you know any amputees that might be up for explaining a few things for us I'd also be grateful).

In the mean time I'll do my own digging and hope I can read the source material soon.

Please please boost this followers!

mod ali

[velvetvexations]

You mean well when you say it and I generally agree with your points but I would like to suggest trying to replace words like “insane,��� “crazy,” and “delusional” in your vocabulary? It may alienate some of your neurodivergents/mentally ill/disabled followers. Some examples might be “ridiculous,” “wild,” “nonsensical,” “irrational,” and “ludicrous” depending on context?

I really appreciate you coming to me about this. Let's talk about it.

I have been deliberately avoiding delusional since getting an anon about it, and I do agree that's fair. I might have slipped up and let it get in at some point since then, but it's been on my mind when I formulate sentences lately.

I am myself, however, very mentally ill, which I talk a lot about when I go into the inherent irrationality behind a lot of NPD that reaches a point where I do really relate to the idea of being "crazy" in the way it's traditionally imagined, because that's exactly what it feels like when I'm having a panic attack over something that could only possibly make sense to me and would be profoundly illogical and completely out of proportion to others.

I also find meaning in using certain terms in a way that isn't necessarily purely clinical - for instance, there's a game called Dread Delusion I'd like very much, and as someone who is profoundly delusional I feel that's a lovely title that probably has good thematic relevance even if it it's a bit profane. Compare that to the movie Schizoid, or the "Psychos" in Borderlands, which are just ableist....although I have a weird relationship with Borderlands Psychos we don't need to get into. Regardless, saying that sounds weird. I'm not trying to invent the concept of artistic ableism vs. obscene ableism, all I mean to say is that I think there's at least some room to relax our standards just a bit in some contexts.

But, of course, casually using words like "crazy" to describe something egregious that should be booed is certainly pointed and reinforces the idea that "crazy" is a bad thing. I wonder, though, if "crazy" and "insane" might not be able to reach the same status as "dumb", which originally referred to muteness but is now considered acceptable. It's not that, as is the case with the origin of "dumb", the meanings are forgotten, but that I'm unsure if those casual uses are really incompatible with a world that destigmatizes neurodivergencey.

It can also be difficult sometimes because I have a lot of words I repeat a lot. I always feel like the same very specific words come to me over and over, and I'm actually really insecure about that.

But first and foremost my primary concern is this: you say these words could alienate some of Velvet Nation, but I'd like, if you'd be so kind, to say so if you personally (and any others who would like to comment) would find it uncomfortable if I didn't make further efforts to go around particular words. I want you and everyone else who may be in the same boat to view me and my space as safe. and that's what's most important to me.

[bonefall]

seeing all the neurodivergence/disability stuff in your inbox and it brought up a part of my (and @syrnaxi’s) rewrite:

Bluestar/yellowfang bond over autistic/adhd solidarity

how do you handle the silverstream “death in childbirth” thing? So far, we’ve been waffling back and forth between “this should happen a lot more” or “silverstream should have a reproductive disability- we’ve decided on endometriosis, something we both have personal experience with. Anyway, I’d love your input on how this could be handled, as well as what general medical care for reproductive issues would look like!!

Thanks!

People are starved for good Neurodivergence/Disability representation and I humbly provide

Blue and Yellow

I won't be doing very much with Bluestar/Yellowfang's possible bond because I find that TPB is already super packed, and Bonefall TPB in particular is extremely politically focused as the basis for what Thistle Law, Traditionalism, and Fire Alone look like in practice. There just isn't room in the story that I'm telling for Blue and Yellow to also get focus as a unit.

I do find them super compelling in the fandom, though. I think the way that, combined, they lost a full litter of kits (Blue lost 1 and Yellow lost 2) is an unexplored concept. Not to mention their complicated feelings towards StarClan, with Yellowfang accepting that she 'deserves' punishment where Bluestar scorns the stars completely.

(CW past this point: I'm talking about Silverstream's death in childbirth, cat reproduction, infection, and also I start ranting about how much human reproduction sucks)

Silverstream

Again since TPB is SO packed it's hard to work in the same kind of disability/neurodivergence exploration I'm so dedicated to for the arcs past TNP

It does make sense to me though that Silverstream's lineage has a medical history of birth complications. I know her mom died of Greencough but it always made more sense to me that it was death by childbirth tbh.

I generally try to avoid talking about reproductive issues the same way I try to avoid talking about surgery and alcohol without massive tagging here and back, but with reproductive issues, I'd also have to get into how fundamentally different cats are to humans with the way we reproduce... which includes cat heat

Humans are one of the very few mammals that are fertile year-round and renew the nutrients in our wombs monthly. Humans are a horror house of animal reproduction.

Replacing these nutrients monthly to the point where it's good growing ground for ONE OF THE MOST INTENSIVE INFANTS IN THE ENTIRE ANIMAL KINGDOM is disgustingly wasteful

Because this gross slop is growing every month, it's like there's a thousand more chances for SOMETHING to go wrong. It's like russian roulette with meat

OUR. PELVISES. SUCK. We made a hasty transition from ape to featherless biped and that meant that the Bone Cradle where we supposed to gestate something that is the size of a melon suddenly also had to BEAR ALL OF OUR WEIGHT AT THE SAME TIME.

Cats are NOT this bad in terms of childbirth. Yeah sure there's complications here and there, but those complications mostly affect the kittens, not the mother. Most uterus problems in cats have to do with mollies that have had a lot of heat cycles and never had kittens.

Heat cycles have their own completely unique set of biological problems though- the cat equivalent of endometriosis would be frequent development of pyometra, because the hormones associated with heat cycles cause the suppression of the immune system. So infections happen OFTEN in the WORST possible way

These are both pretty bad, so personally I just... try not to think about it too much for the rewrite. I take the best of both worlds-- their childbirth isn't as bad and dangerous as a human's, and also they don't get pyometra much.

If you want treatment plans for reproductive issues though, I'd recommend looking over at my HRT guide. The antigonadotropins (rosemary, wolf's foot) I mention there can be used for cats who have reproductive issues to prevent as much thickening of the uterus and generally limit the causes of both Endometriosis and Pyometra; bad hormones.

[caseyspronounshop]

Theme Day #3 |:| Kidcore Theme!

This ones REAL silly :3 Todays theme is Kidcore! "Kidcore is an aesthetic that centers around bright colors, nostalgia for icons from the 90s, and kid themes." Colors, playgrounds, stuffed animals, Kandi, Balloons, robot pets, and the such! It was really fun to find these! ^-^ As per usual, we're gonna be starting off with the Neopronouns! Remember that you're free to change up and edit these however you'd like! For example: Primary/Primaryself! This could be used as "Pri/Primars/Primaryself" or maybe "Pri/Prys/Primarys/Primaryself"! Whatever forms you wanna use! Experiment with them! (Tip: Pronouns replace names in sentences, so Neopronouns are also a fun way to find names to go by! Try em out!) And remember; if you have a question on how to use any specific neos, or just questions in general, gimme an ask and I can help! I'd love to answer any question! Neopronouns: Col/Colorself Pri/mar/primaryself Play/Playself Spark/Sparkleself Cray/Crayonself Stick/Sticks/Stickerself Kan/Kandis/Kandiself Splat/Splatself Hyp/Hyperself Candi/Candies/Candyself Tri/Trick/Trickself Zan/Zanni/Zanniself Star/Starself Bub/Bubbleself Fi/Fizz/Fuzzyself Plush/Plushie/PLushieself Toi/Toyself Doll/Dollself Trinket/Trinketself Fuz/Fuzzie/Fuzzyself Sil/Sillyself Pai/Paintself Re/Reds/Redself, Blu/Blueself, etc Bri/Brights/Brightself Rai/Rainbo/Rainbowself Bea/Beads/Beadself Cart/Catroonself Button/Buttonself Neo/Neos/Neon/Neonself Xenogenders:

Kidcoric/ Kidcoric- related to the aesthetic of kidcore. Sellaplasticic - related to small, brightly or pastel colored plastic chairs. Colorgender - umbrella term for genders associated with one or more colors and the feelings, emotions, or objects associated with it. Palettegender - has a select amount of colorgenders that they are fluid between Brightgender - bright, colorful, and chaotic Playgroundgender - related to, connected to, or influenced by playgrounds. Sillygender - related to clowns/circuscore, horror, dreamcore, nostalgiacore, neurodivergence, and/or kidcore Kandigender -  colorful but organized, or simply related to scenecore and kandi accessories. Media To Satisfy Your Kidcoric Needs! 6dokidoki (clothes store) Kidcore.shop (clothes store) Max's Kidcore Theme (Pinterest board) Kidcore by Aesthetics Wiki Official (Playlist) Clowns and Silly Little Guys by CaseyTheGhost (playlist by me!) ULTIMATE KIDCORE PLAYLIST by Amethyst

[cassandrasimplex]

This describes exactly the Gen X AuDHD background I come from. I was read as female and "weird" to a degree initially acceptable to adults (for a gifted child) but even though testing in 3rd grade indicated I DEFINITELY had some kind of learning disability, it was shrugged off as irrelevant because "her strengths can more than make up for her weaknesses, so some things will just be a little harder for her."

Then I spent another decade in school being resented when I did well (because "everything's so easy for her") AND resented when I did poorly (because "it's about time she had to learn how hard everyone else has to work" or possibly just "we know she's smarter than that so obviously she's just not taking this seriously and needs to learn a lesson about real life").

I was FINALLY diagnosed with a specific learning disability right before my senior year of high school, the first semester after the ADA went into effect. Which is another thing OP didn't go into -- up until about halfway through Gen X, you're looking at neurodivergent people who went through their ENTIRE school year without any protection from the ADA because it didn't exist yet.

I was diagnosed with Central Auditory Processing Disorder (now just auditory processing disorder, but at the time, "central" was used to indicate that this was a central nervous system, aka brain, issue, rather than a problem with the physical apparatus of hearing). The support offered me was... Well, wait until we get there.

I was also diagnosed with "general learning disability" and "math specific learning disability", later recognized as ADHD and dyscalculia. Neuropsych testing suggests I'm also dyslexic, but that's an area where most of the time my cognitive strengths DO make up for my weaknesses; I don't encounter difficulty reading until something else is taking up a HUGE swath of spare processor cycles, like a migraine or autistic burnout.

First semester post-ADA, my high school's response -- keeping in mind I'd been in their gifted/talented program since the third-grade testing, taking "honors" (g/t) or AP courses all three previous years of high school, had a GPA around 5.5 thanks to honors/AP classes continuing for more, and was by all measures an academically gifted student "with an attitude problem" (that "needs to work hard like everybody else" bias) -- my high school's response was that they could put me in the Special Education program, which would completely remove me from the normal curriculum and prevent me from graduating with a high school diploma, replacing it with a "intellectually disabled person ready for basic menial work at less than minimum wage" certificate, or they could just pretend they didn't know I had learning disabilities and GRACIOUSLY ALLOW ME to keep taking classes with my "normal" peers.

This is the kind of thing that leads to the "mental breakdown"/burnout stories OP refers to. Would you rather be labeled uneducable or TRY HARDER to keep the school from noticing you have learning disabilities, which in this case means not just doing as well as your peers (because you're GIFTED!) but consistently better, in order to hide your disabilities?

My neurodivergence became a lever the school system used to force me to work harder and harder with less support than my peers because I was "too gifted" to be taking attention away from my "less blessed" peers.

It wasn't until after I'd already struggled through a third semester of college and been asked not to "embarrass [my]self" by enrolling for a fourth semester that my parents sprang for more testing and I was diagnosed with ADHD.

It was the year before Asperger's Syndrome entered diagnostic labels with the DSM-IV, and my psych was reluctant to give me the only label available -- autistic -- because that would only serve to bar me from re-entering college, not gain me support and ADA accommodations. I was diagnosed as autistic, just not with a diagnostic code that could be used to force schools to provide accommodations.

Migraines recently ended my FIFTH attempt to finish my degree, which I've been working at on and off for 30 years. This last time, I hit a new record, making it five semesters in before the school told me to "take some time off" (require less support), this time immediately after the end of the term in which I finally submitted the audiologist's report documenting my auditory processing disorder because my counselor insisted on weekly phone calls I could barely follow and refused to communicate by email or chat, which would have provided the text record I needed. I mean, they changed my counselor to one from the disabled student services department for the rest of the term; that was just the last term they let me take.

So its still going on. The individual ableism and systemic ableism reinforce reach other. I had one teacher my senior year of high school who actually gave a shit about my diagnoses and started doing things like handing out written lists of problems to do for homework, just to everybody, the entire class, without saying why -- just so I didn't have to struggle with the auditory and math disabilities simultaneously to write down the correct problem numbers when she read them out loud.

But by far the more common experience was that when teachers found out I had learning disabilities, they didn't drop the resentment about things that came easily to me; they just forgot I was capable of them while holding onto the idea that I never "took school seriously" and adding the idea that I was ineducable and fundamentally incompetent.

The main difference is that during high school, I had no words to fight back with, to keep those attitudes from sinking into my own self-image and convincing me that since everyone else seemed to believe these things of me, they must be true. I truly believed I was a waste of teachers' time both because I could not learn and because I could not work hard enough.

Meanwhile, fellow gifted/talented students who were definitely fellow autistic and/or ADHD students but also read as male were just "quirky". You know, as geniuses are expected to be! And of course things came easily to them, since they were geniuses; that was only to be expected. Not a character flaw to find things easy. And most of them didn't need to seek diagnosis, because there was an immediate understanding that being AMAZING at one thing, like math, didn't automatically mean they had the same savant capabilities in all their classes; they were allowed to be ready for calculus as juniors or seniors while still struggling with history or art. They were allowed to be good at only a few things, and even bad at one or two.

Which is, of course, deeply ironic since the diagnostic criteria were BASED ON THEM to a degree that prevented girls and women from being diagnosed with anything but mental illness or "attitude problems".

So, if you want to understand the history of ND stuff in any useful kind of way you have to know that we talked about these things differently. Gen Xrs have a different generational experience and Boomers' is different still.

Prior to the 80s, NDs were really not a thing. The optic was almost entirely in terms of learning disability and intellectual impairment in the 70s.

ADHD - not autism - is really the first we see of anything resembling the modern ND consciousness, as "autistic" was a label reserved for children presenting with severe disability or at minimum, delay.

Autism in the 70s and 80s and before was not culturally adjacent to ADHD or giftedness, it was adjacent to conditions of severe intellectual impairment.

It's possible to be an 80s ADHD labeled autistic who gets good interventions *because lots of how ADHD was understood at the time, got absorbed by autism later.*

This is basically my story as a matter of fact, a lot of helpful support I got early was via the ADHD pipeline, and so ADHD *is* my "recognized early enough to get meaningful self understanding and meaningful support* narrative, which is a big reason I was ABLE to shrug off autism as a label for about 15 years, until the changing autism stereotypes caught up with me.

ADHD and early issues with visible LD etc are WHY I didn't end up in the "normal until hospitalized" optic that some autistics I knew ended up in, if they had *only* been seen as gifted. I was very aware of my stuff very early even if it was called something else and even if it will be called something else in the future, and it shaped my social choices, my career choices, etc.

Also there was the optic to Boomers and older that you really could just be a "normal" person or even a high performing "genius" who was just "a little slow as a kid." (There are many historical figures this actually applies to. "A little slow as a kid" may just be within a *normal* range of child development.) This is actually part of where many Boomers are coming from when they think a certain degree of autism is just normal.

Early labels in adults (whom we would now understand as high masking ASD-1) were more personal history than identity.

To Boomers and older, you were "mentally well" until you presented "mentally ill." There really wasn't anything like being ND as we presently understand. Also, the *very same optics* that got boys seen as gifted, invested lots of time and support into, etc, got girls into the clinical pipeline early. The real dx discrepancy between girls and boys in my generation and older is the degree to which cis het white rich boys were just allowed to not be anything at all while girls were immediately tagged as mentally ill or developmentally disabled with the very same presentation, even within the same family. My grandmother who was a victim of this, and heavily and deeply abused from early childhood, is the sister of my physicist uncle who was on the Manhattan Project and was odd but successful, had a wife and family, never labeled anything at all.

Lots of people we now see as autistic were just considered normal gifted people who then had a "nervous breakdown" after high school/entering the adult world.

It was possible to be totally ego-syntonic as an odd person until diagnosis, if you were in the 80s gifted pipeline, because if you were in a social set that was actually ALLOWED to be intelligent let alone gifted in the first place (i.e., an upper middle class person, with more weirdness optic allowed for boys) you likely weren't going to be diagnosed with ANYTHING unless you were Weird with a Capital W.

That I had any kind of optic besides just being Gifted is *because* despite high IQ, I was a poor academic performer, and *couldn't* mask well inside a school setting.

These are people without even that optic.

They literally were just seen as gifted, and it was assumed that - of course - highly gifted people were a little weird. Gifted optic in school meant access to a whole different social and academic pipeline consisting hugely of other people we would now understand as ND, so it's actually possible to come out of that being totally ego-syntonic, and never ever even seek diagnosis until something breaks.

If you're like my ex husband who ended up just going away to sea for years, and then becoming a programmer in a basement at a university, you might never get diagnosed with anything, especially if you never see yourself as the problem in any of your interpersonal interactions, and that was a FAR more common optic with gifted white Gen X and Jones ASD-1 boys than early dx was.

The thing for my generation isnt the degree to which boys were diagnosed over girls... quite the opposite, it's the degree to which smart white rich boys were just *allowed* to be odd and given tons of concessions *without* being labeled ANYTHING, because of the degree to which the culture saw that boy was probably a future curer of cancer or a future astronaut.

A chunk of the "NT [more likely, high masking autist] woman miserably married to ASD man" narrative on those websites like FAAAS is actually referring to men who don't have any diagnostic label whatsoever and don't understand themselves as the problem, if you actually read the stories.

Those guys don't get diagnosed until something actually breaks - like, their wife hauls them into couples counseling, or they have finally exhausted their supply of good will (many social compensations of gifted children stop working past one's 20s and that's actually when my dx happened too).

Interpersonal problems weren't enough for dx unless they actually bothered a person enough to seek help. Something has to break. You don't end up with a diagnosis because you're happy and adjusted, no matter how odd you are.

Please ask Boomers about nervous breakdowns because half the time this is referring to what we now understand as autistic burnout.

[xerospaced]

I had a bit of a meltdown

Like... obviously I'm dealing with some difficult feelings and whatnot

And im trying to self soothe and reassure and such

But I had this flash of a thought of not wanting to live and... I don't know man

I became instantly overwhelmed

And just broke

And had to stim/self soothe (also echolalia??) To bring myself back down

Coz one of the most significant aspects of my healing journey was when I not stopped not wanting to be here. But I started to actually WANT to live.

And it's not like I've not had flashes of those old intrusive thoughts before, but it's been like... a memory. A reflex. Easily shrugged off and about my business coz that's not how I feel

But today, the thought passed as quickly. But I didn't just think it. I Felt it. In my core. That same guttural sensation. Almost like urgency. And it scared me.

In fact, it terrified me.

Because I can't have backtracked like this.

I cant have lost this much progress.

And I haven't. I do want to live. I soothed. I affirmed. I brought myself back.

The intensity of not wanting to have that feeling or think like that was what actually triggered the meltdown. Not the thought/feeling itself. Just the absolute intensity of wanting to live. And never wanting to feel any other way about it again.

I was overwhelmed with fear and desperation.

But I soothed. And it brought me out of that introspective catatonic state that had taken over and I got up and cleaned up the cat mess and fed them and grabbed my meal replacement drink and filled my water bottle

Now im gonna wash for bed and cuddle with the kitties.

I used to think I couldnt pursue my chosen career and business (mental wellness consulting) if I still had experiences like this. Or struggled.

When - let's be realistic, every therapist needs a therapist - the reality is that I do manage and I do manage well.

Yes, I struggle. But I moderate my thoughts. I process them. I react to them appropriately. I tend to self as best I can and I remain constructive in my outlook and approach.

And that is the reality of what it means to be well sometimes as a person with a history of trauma or who deals with mental illnesses or neurodivergence.

You're not just gonna be great all the time. But wellness isn't about only or always being well. It is about HOW you manage yourself even when things are not well.

It's about healthy and appropriate response that keep us safe and avoid increasing harm.

Yes, I can have these experiences and still aid others in achieving mental wellness. And that is the whole point of naming my business as I did. Where Like Minds Meet. That's the whole thing. It's giving people the opportunity to approach their mental health with the guidance and support of someone who has lived a similar or shared experience.

I've been to therapists. Most of them are book learnt. Most of them haven't endured or experienced the real extent of the trauma and damage most of their clients are coming to them with. And they give generic advice. By the book teachings. And there's a disconnect because they just don't get it.

Best therapist I ever had disclosed her own difficulties on her site. I only realised after our time had come to an end, but it made me realise why she had been so effective. Why I'd felt seen even tho it was still me essentially leading the sessions and presenting my own solutions.

It's because she fucken GOT it

She wasn't on the outside looking in. She was sitting right there with me as we looking at what I was facing together.

It makes a world of difference.

[moinsbienquekaworu]

Good morning my beloved (or at least, it is morning for both of us when I am sending this but hopefully you've gotten to sleep in) and I just wanted to say two things:

1) yes I got your asks and I am so hinged right along with you I love your blorbos like they are my own <3

And 2) I can so so relate to your just wanting to be like "normal" girls but knowing in your bones you'd never be able to be like them. That was my whole childhood, both before and after I started socially transitioning, bc it's like,,,,, you (general you) just want so badly to be normal and yet you know you never will be and it hurts, and it's like mourning something you (general you) never lost in the first place, if that makes sense?? And I'm sure you hear this all the time, esp from people older, and so I'm so so sorry to say it again, but it does genuinely get better as you get older, I promise. You may never be a "normal" girl with "normal" interests and capabilities, but like you even said right in your post, yeah your roommates are cool, us tumblr mutuals are cool, and you're learning who you are, and that's amazing and wonderful and you deserve every bit of joy you get from that

The usual disclaimer of I have severe brain fog applies, but also: you really are epic, I promise, and if you ever need anything just lmk, not that I'd be able to do much across the ocean but I almost always can listen, and I love you very much and good luck and everything <33333

Tomas if I hadn't asked for your hand in very serious and legally binding marriage already that would've sealed the deal. Actually let me get the image again because the sentiment is still there in my heart.

Okay I needed to say it. So. In order:

I did sleep in! I love sleeping in. Sleeping in my beloved. I slept in, did my groceries like the adult I am (and I'm eating both fruits & veg's AND candy, god I love just buying my own stuff), took a shower, and ate pizza in front of the two Deadpool movies. Great day, would do again.

1) well they can be your blorbos too for the low low price of uh - actually it's not a low price it's a good like at least dozen hours just for season one of Daredevil, and that's probably shorter than trying the comics. But. Low low price of a dozen hours and some violence on screen. Otherwise I can keep telling you about it in increasingly detailed rants I love doing that also <3 one thing we'll have in our beautiful home once we're very legally bindingly married will be a big box for hinges at the door the way people have shoe racks. You put your hinges in it when you come in because we want the least hinged environment possible. <3 <3

2) yesss I knew you'd get it, former weird girls assemble and such. I guess I'm not fully out of the weird girl woods, but also maybe if you ever were a weird girl she's always inside of you 🤔 anyway. I know it gets better I'm seeing it real time!! I made cooler friends in high school and I'm making even cooler friends in uni & outside of it and keeping only the best. I'm wearing clothes I like after years of slowing replacing my kid wardrobe with long term pieces. I know what I like and how I like it and by that point I know that like, there will always be someone who'll notice me and like me if I'm loud enough about myself.

It's just the combo of weird girl + aro(ace) + some flavour of neurodivergent. I want to be more spontaneous and meet people and try dating things but my brain's need for structure and my impressive aura of non-romanceability are not helping.

Like you want to be normal but you don't want to become normal, you just want to always have been!! Because by this point becoming normal would be both painful but also just straight up impossible. It's like ADHD in that I am mourning this ethereal potential that rationally I know doesn't exist and never existed.

I just feel like I'm both too young to be here but also already late, which of course you're going to feel like that if you compare yourself to others, but y'know. People older than me at the same stage of life are doing more standard normal things and hitting milestones I should be hitting, and my younger cousins are cooler than me and have boyfriends/girlfriends. My younger brother's going to have a better mark on his first real degree and bring someone home earlier than me, and my only accomplishments of speaking english and having gone abroad will be nothing compared to everyone else hitting milestones Better than me somehow. Anyway. The point is comparison sucks because the only good time for me to hit any milestone is when I do it, because I'm living my life and not anyone else's, but y'know. At least I think most people that actually matter in my life think I'm cool so eh.

WELL. Thank you for the space to be unhinged about many various things. I think you're biased in thinking I'm epic but since I'm getting a good grade in friend I'll take it honestly. You're also epic, I give you a 20/20 in friend and a ring that both is practical so you can wear it even while doing manual tasks and elegant because you are of course worth it. I hope YOU have a good day when you read this (because you're probably asleep/preparing for Morpheus so you should see this in the morning) and I love yoouu <3 <3 <3

[honeybeekao]

what about narancia or koichi? :]

OOO HELLO IT'S MY BESTIES

koichi!

koichi was the first jojo character i ever latched on to since i started by seeing a random episode of DIU 😭

first of all he is absolutely trans u cant convince me otherwise. figured it out when he was really young and everyone just shrugged in loving acceptance.

i think he at Some Point was in a choir. not particularly because he's good at singing, but he does enjoy it! he asks rohan to make him a better singer once, but he declines. (refuses, lol) something about the way koichi sings is endearing and he sees it as a disservice to ruin that.

he has the same exact birthday experience every year like it's a routine thing. ayana wakes him up before the sun rises, the sky is slightly lighter than midnight, and their family all watches as the constellations of starlight are replaced by warmth of a sunny day. it's like a fun coincidence that it's never cloudy on his birthday.

josuke asks him if he games once and he's like "oh yeah!" but the boy just plays tetris on his DS. downside, he absolutely sucks at mario kart. UPSIDE—he bodies okuyasu at tetris.

WHEN ROHAN LIVED AS HIS ROOMMATE it just led to koichi following him around morioh to try and gain more inspiration. something about "two stand users may be better luck of a fun story." they never really do find anything that exciting, but they bond/fight over clothing brands they see throughout stores.

he's just a little guy he's my friend i love koichi

narancia!!

dont even get me started narancia is the embodiment of neurodivergence he's who i'd point to if anyone asked what my adhd is like.

he has so many questions about the world- concepts he can't quite wrap his head around- and the thing is he doesn't necessarily know how to put them into words. or they come out in ways that others don't fully understand. i think giorno's really good at taking these questions and re-wording them- they work together!

narancia's also very adamant about not giving a fuck. he'll do whatever he pleases (under the boundaries of he obviously doesn't wanna hurt anyone he loves. that's where the bar is with being reckless. and generally, he doesnt wanna inconvenience others for no reason.) very emotionally driven and cares for anyone who hasnt shown signs of abandoning him

i THINK HE HAS A COLLECTION OF ALL THE SILLY GIFTS GIVEN TO HIM. MOST OF THEM ARE FROM MISTA, who somehow finds something that reminds him of nara every new place they go. with memory trouble, it's a wonder narancia remembers where each gift is from. nevertheless, each is very special to him. (there's an orange pair of broken shutter glasses in the shapes of stars that giorno found walking on the beach - narancia taped them to his wall)

his sleep schedule is constantly fluctuating no one knows when the fuck he'll be a residence of the living room—unless of course he falls asleep on the couch next to mista and fugo. movie nights are very important.

fugo and trish take turns doing his makeup!! his hands are too shaky for him to do it himself but in his words; "my face is your canvas!"

narancia ghirga WHAT a character i adore him

[bi-rising]

so this week's subject of discourse on my side of twitter is pronouns and i'd like to ask your thoughts on them? personally i think "pronouns aren't tied to gender" is bs. pronouns only exist to replace one's name not to make conversation repetitive so of course they SHOULD specify the gender. so we know who we're talking about!! which makes the "she/they" "he/they" "all pronouns" thing ridiculous to me. like how am i supposed to know we're talking about one (1) person and not multiple? it defeats the point of pronouns...

btw i also find the "they" for nb ppl frustrating bc in spanish our "they" is gendered. like we have él/ellos (masculine he/they), ella/ellas (femenine she/they) AND in what we call "inclusive language" we've created a new non-gendered pronoun in both singular and plural (elle/elles) which i love. ik some languages don't even use pronouns but coming from a language that does, it irks me that in english it's like halfway there yk? like english language if you're gonna have pronouns do it well lol

ahh, the infamous pronoun debate!

in short: yes. pronouns are inherently gendered.

it makes no sense to use a pronoun that doesn't tie to your gender identity, and you shouldn't be using conflicting pronouns (ie he/him lesbian or she/her gay man) bc the whole point of pronouns is to make communications easier. i also have a very hard time with mixed pronouns, bc if you switch between pronouns, it makes it absolutely incoherent of who you're speaking about. and that's not even touching on the subject of neurodivergent brains that find it hard to follow a conversation in normal circumstances.

as for the they/them issue, while i still find it incredibly difficult to use it as someone who is 1) neurodivergent and 2) been paying attention to how english works since 4th grade when i decided i wanted to eventually publish a book, i would rather have they/them for nb's and gender neutral issues than any set of neopronouns (or even the old ones like thon or whatever). but that's also from a native english speaker, where that's what i'm used to, and so it just makes the most sense for me. plus, to me, allowing neopronouns in for any reason is too much of a slippery slope into like, emoji neopronouns n shit that we've got going on online already.

on a bit more of a selfish note, i also hate mixed pronouns bc you use pronouns when you're talking about someone, not to someone. so mixed pronouns--especially the people that demand that you constantly flip between them--are asking others to view them as so special as to make the world harder for neurodivergent people, both the one talking and the one listening, with that person gone. it's frustrating and it's annoying and it's extremely confusing.

again, as a native english speaker that doesn't speak spanish, i think it's pretty cool that y'all have a non-gendered they/them (if i'm understanding what you're saying right!! if not i v much apologize)!! that's awesome for you guys and i hope that's going well :)

but yeah, pronouns are inherently gendered, so i agree that he/they, she/they, he/her, and she/he/they are generally pretty terrible for a multitude of reasons. i'll cling to my they/them just for sanity's sake (and bc yuck to neopronouns) but i can definitely understand why you would be frustrated with english not having an equivalent to spanish.